000			01837nam a2200193Ia 4500
008			250103s9999 xx 000 0 und d
020			_a9780197566817 _qhbk
041			_aeng
082			_a200.071 _bMIL
100			_aMiller
245		0	_aWhy Study Religion? C/ _cMiller
260			_bOxford University Press _c2021 _aNew York
300			_ax, 368p. _c24 cm.
504			_aindex
520			_a"This book asks: Can the study of religion be justified? It poses this question on the view that scholarship in religion, especially work in "theory and method," is preoccupied with matters of methodological procedure and thus inarticulate about the goals that can justify the study of religion and motivate scholarship in the field. For that reason, it insists, the field suffers from a crisis of rationale. The book identifies six prevailing methodologies in the field, each of which it critically examines as symptomatic of this crisis, on the way toward offering an alternative framework for thinking about purposes for studying religion. Shadowing these methodologies is a Weberian scientific ideal for studying religion, one that privileges value-neutrality. This ideal poses obstacles to making justificatory claims on behalf of studying religion and fortifies a repressive conscience about thinking normatively within the field's regime of truth. After making these points, the chapter describes the book's alternative framework, Critical Humanism, especially how it theorizes about the ends rather than the means of humanistic scholarship and offers a basis for thinking about the ethics of Religious Studies as held together by four values: Post-critical Reasoning, Social Criticism, Cross-cultural Fluency, and Environmental Responsibility.
650			_a Anthropology
650			_aReligion Methodology
942			_cENGLISH
999			_c567786 _d567786